Disability Law Commons^™

Shifting To A Culture Of Inclusion By Design: Applying A Mixed-Methods Approach To Advance Accessibility Of Public Health Emergency Information & Communication Technology, Jessica L. Franks, Erin Vinoski Thomas

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience inequities in access to timely, accurate, and understandable information and communication technology (ICT), which increases risk for public health emergency (PHE)-related health disparities and impedes opportunities to achieve optimal health. This study assessed federal COVID-19 webpage accessibility levels and explored existing knowledge of and experience with filing accessibility complaints for federal ICT among adults with IDD. Through a mixed-methods approach, we evaluated compliance with accessibility standards for 18 federal agencies’ COVID-19 webpages (study 1) and interviewed 16 adults with IDD about experiences accessing federal webpages and filing accessibility complaints (study 2). We …

Congress's Empty Promises: The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In The Midst Of Education Crisis, Sarah Jana

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disability Reproductive Justice During Covid-19 And Beyond, Robyn M. Powell

American University Law Review

The United States is experiencing the convergence of two crises threatening the reproductive freedom of people with disabilities and other historically marginalized groups: the COVID-19 pandemic and a rising assault on reproductive rights, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. This convergence has created a perfect storm, revealing the depth of existing reproductive injustices endured by disabled people and forcing a reckoning with the consequences of permitting such inequities to persist. As such, urgent attention by activists, scholars, legal professionals, and policymakers is necessary.

This Article proposes a vision for addressing the deeply entrenched …

Without Accommodation, Jennifer Bennett Shinall

Indiana Law Journal

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), workers with disabilities have the legal right to reasonable workplace accommodations provided by employers. Because this legal right is unique to disabled workers, these workers could, in theory, enjoy greater access to the types of accommodations that are desirable to all workers—including the ability to work from home, to work flexible hours, and to take leave. This Article compares access to these accommodations, which have become increasingly desirable during the COVID-19 pandemic, between disabled workers and nondisabled workers. Using 2017–2018 data from the American Time Use Survey’s Leave and Job Flexibilities Module, I …

A Covid Silver Lining? How Telework May Be A Reasonable Accommodation After All, Baylee Kalmbach

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Protect Special Education During Covid-19: From The Courts To The Capitol, Sarah Coleman

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced students around the country out of brick-and-mortar schools and into virtual classrooms. While the switch to remote learning has helped keep students and teachers safe from contracting the virus, students with disabilities have largely been deprived of a meaningful education and in person services mandated under federal law. This essay will explain how students have been denied a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), how litigation has been unsuccessful in creating systemic change for these students, and how public policy by U.S. legislators can offer a solution.

Ability Apartheid And Paid Leave, Ryan H. Nelson, Michael Ashley Stein

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Ableism at Work: Disablement and Hierarchies of Impairment. By Paul David Harpur.

Advancing Harm Reduction Services In The United States: The Untapped Role Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, Valarie K. Blake, Abigail Fletes, Maria Katherine Delos Reyes, John C. Messinger, Leo Beletsky

Scholarly Works

Now in its third decade, the overdose crisis continues to worsen. Harm reduction strategies, such as syringe service programs (SSPs), are proven, cost-effective responses to this ongoing public health emergency. Despite extensive research demonstrating that the health and social benefits of harm reduction services far outweigh alleged negative externalities, the number and scope of these programs continue to be severely limited. Restrictive zoning and other discriminatory legal measures figure among key barriers to harm reduction service access. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Rehabilitation Act (RA) have recently gained prominence in challenging discrimination against people who seek substance use …

Civil Rights And Disability Justice Clinic: Brief And Special Appendix For Plaintiffs-Appellants: Not Dead Yet, Nmd United, Disability Rights New York, Michelle Brose, Mike Volkman, Jessica Tambor, Peri Finkelstein, Individually And On Behalf Of A Class Of All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs- Appellants V. Kathy Hochul, Governor Of The State Of New York, In Her Offifficial Capacity, Howard A. Zucker, Commissioner Of The New York State Department Of Health, In His Offifficial Capacity, Defendants-Appellees. Case 21-2212., New York Law School

Briefs/Court Filings

No abstract provided.

Maternity Rights: A Comparative View Of Mexico And The United States, Roberto Rosas

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Women play a large role in the workplace and require additional protection during pregnancy, childbirth, and while raising children. This article compares how Mexico and the United States have approached the issue of maternity rights and benefits. First, Mexico provides eighty-four days of paid leave to mothers, while the United States provides unpaid leave for up to twelve weeks. Second, Mexico allows two thirty-minute breaks a day for breastfeeding, while the United States allows a reasonable amount of time per day to breastfeed. Third, Mexico provides childcare to most federal employees, while the United States provides daycares to a small …

Lessons From The Pandemic: Congress Must Act To Mandate Digital Accessibility For The Disabled Community, Shawn Grant

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The upheaval and disruption created by the COVID-19 pandemic has left some of our most vulnerable, the disabled community, facing increased discrimination and hardship due in part to lack of access to websites and other digital technologies. The pandemic has laid bare the extent of our dependence on technology and the perils faced by those who are unable to access that technology. This Article identifies the regulatory, judicial, and legislative failures to resolve the issue of whether digital technologies are “places of public accommodation” under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It then calls on Congress to enact …

The Future Of The Americans With Disabilities Act: Website Accessibility Litigation After Covid-19, Randy Pavlicko

Cleveland State Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990 to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Over time, as society has become more reliant on the internet, the issue of whether the ADA’s scope extends beyond physical places to online technology has emerged. A circuit split developed on this issue, and courts have discussed three interpretations of the ADA’s scope: (1) the ADA applies to physical places only; (2) the ADA applies to a website or mobile app that has a sufficient nexus to a physical place; or (3) the ADA broadly applies beyond physical places to online technology. …

A Self-Advocate’S Perspective On The Covid-19 Pandemic, D.R. Reff

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

This article summarizes the experience of a self-advocate from Idaho during the COVID pandemic. This article addresses issues of social isolation, mental health, and social supports.

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Disability Services And Systems: Perspectives From The Field, Ronda Jenson, John Tschida

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

No abstract provided.

Perspectives Of Immigrant Families And Persons With Disabilities During Covid-19, Diana Rodriguez Lmsw, Kathleen Mcgrath Msw

Developmental Disabilities Network Journal

Background: The health, economic, social, political, and psychological consequences of COVID-19 have been deeply felt on a global level. Persons with disabilities, including those from Hispanic/Latino immigrant communities, have faced unique challenges during both the peak and fallout of the pandemic. Throughout both the United States and New York City, COVID-19 has disproportionately affected communities of color. However, the impact of COVID-19 on persons with disabilities among immigrant and communities of color is still unfolding.

Aims: In this paper, we aim to better understand the compounded stress of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced by immigrant families who have a child with …

Applying The Health Justice Framework To Address Health And Health Care Inequities Experienced By People With Disabilities During And After Covid-19, Robyn M. Powell

Washington Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially devastating for people with disabilities, as well as other socially marginalized communities. Indeed, an emerging body of scholarship has revealed that people with disabilities are experiencing striking disparities. In particular, scholars have shined a light on state and hospital triage policies that allow hospitals to ration critical health care and resources, such as ventilators, for people with disabilities if resources become limited and they cannot treat all patients during the pandemic. These injustices deserve extensive consideration from policymakers, legal professionals, and scholars.

Elucidating how the inequities that people with disabilities experience during the COVID-19 …

For All Who Have Borne The Battle: A Wish List For The Incoming Secretary Of The United States Department Of Veterans Affairs, Benjamin Pomerance

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 Employee Health Checks, Remote Work, And Disability Law, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, about 61 million individuals in the U.S. The law’s protections in the workplace are especially important during COVID-19, which has worsened pre-existing disparities experienced by people with disabilities. The ADA also applies to new strategies to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection in the workplace. This Chapter will focus on two strategies that impact individuals with and without disabilities – employee health screening, testing and vaccination policies, and new or expanded remote work programs.

The New Eugenics, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

During the first third of the Twentieth Century, the eugenics movement played a powerful role in the politics, law, and culture of the United States. The fear of “the menace of the feebleminded,” the notion that those with supposedly poor genes “sap the strength of the State,” and other similar ideas drove the enthusiastic implementation of the practices of excluding disabled individuals from the country, incarcerating them in ostensibly beneficent institutions, and sterilizing them. By the 1930s, with the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, eugenic ideas had begun to be discredited in American public discourse. And after the Holocaust, …

Resolving Tensions Between Disability Rights Law And Covid-19 Mask Policies, Elizabeth Pendo, Robert Gatter, Seema Mohapatra

All Faculty Scholarship

As states reopen, an increasing number of state and local officials are requiring people to wear face masks while out of the home. Grocery stores, retail outlets, restaurants and other businesses are also announcing their own mask policies, which may differ from public policies. Public health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus such as wearing masks have the potential to greatly benefit millions of Americans with disabilities, who are particularly vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19. But certain disabilities may make it difficult or inadvisable to wear a mask.
/="/">
/="/">Mask-wearing has become a political flashpoint, putting …

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

May Hospitals Withhold Ventilators From Covid-19 Patients With Pre-Existing Disabilities? Notes On The Law And Ethics Of Disability-Based Medical Rationing, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Law & Economics Working Papers

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the threat of medical rationing is now clear and present. Hospitals faced with a crush of patients must now seriously confront questions of how to allocate scarce resources—notably life-saving ventilators—at a time of severe shortage. In their protocols for addressing this situation, hospitals and state agencies often employ explicitly disability-based distinctions. For example, Alabama’s crisis standards of care provide that “people with severe or profound intellectual disability ‘are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.’” This essay, written as this crisis unfolds, argues that disability-based distinctions like these violate the law. The Americans with Disabilities Act, the …

Covid-19 And Public Accommodations Under The Americans With Disabilities Act: Getting Americans Safely Back To Restaurants, Theaters, Gyms, And “Normal”, Frank Griffin M.D., J.D.

SLU Law Journal Online

THIS IS A PRELIMINARY EXPEDITED VERSION OF THE OFFICIAL ARTICLE TO BE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL VOLUME 65 NUMBER 2

COVID-19 permanently changed the way places of public accommodation like restaurants, theaters, medical facilities, arenas, gyms, and many other proprietors of mainstream American activities must operate in order to accommodate people with newly-defined, COVID-19-related disabilities under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The required modifications will affect all patrons and employees of these establishments. Under the ADA, places of public accommodation are barred from discriminating against people with disabilities in the full and …

Covid-19 And Individuals With Developmental Disabilities: Tragic Realities And Cautious Hope, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast the United States, along with the rest of the world, into a time of crisis and uncertainty unlike any other in recent memory. Months into the pandemic, there is scant agreement among scientists, government officials, and large segments of the public, both domestic and abroad, as to determining the causes and workings of the virus, designing appropriate and effective responses to the outbreak, and constructing accurate assessments of the future—or even of the present. Indeed, the availability of concrete information about the virus and its effects is grossly inadequate and often replaced by anecdotal or …

The Case For Face Shields: Improving The Covid-19 Public Health Policy Toolkit, Timothy L. Wiemken, Ana Santos Rutschman, Robert Gatter

All Faculty Scholarship

As the United States battles the later stages of the first wave of COVID-19 and faces the prospect of future waves, it is time to consider the practical utility of face shields as an alternative or complement to face masks in the policy guidance. Without face shields specifically noted in national guidance, many areas may be reluctant to allow their use as an alternative to cloth face masks, even with sufficient modification.

In this piece, we discuss the benefits of face shields as a substitute to face masks in the context of public health policy. We further discuss the implications …

Protecting The Rights Of People With Disabilities, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

One in four Americans — a diverse group of 61 million people — experience some form of disability (Okoro, 2018). On average, people with disabilities experience significant disparities in education, employment, poverty, access to health care, food security, housing, transportation, and exposure to crime and domestic violence (Pendo & Iezzoni, 2019). Intersections with demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and LGBT status, may intensify certain inequities. For example, women with disability experience greater disparities in income, education, and employment (Nosek, 2016), and members of under-served racial and ethnic groups with disabilities experience greater disparities in health status and access …

The New "Essential": Rethinking Social Goods In The Age Of Covid-19, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the fragility of social insurance systems in the United States and the lack of income security and basic benefits for many workers and residents. The United States has long had weaker protections for workers compared to other liberal democracies racial and economic disparities among those most affected by these dislocations (analyses are hampered by a paucity of demographic data). Those who were socially and economically vulnerable before the pandemic (for example due to homelessness, immigration status, or incarceration) are likely to suffer the most harm. Changes in workplace conditions as a result of the …